'Immaculate' - Haggas, Gosden and Bell reflect on the Queen's Windsor committal

Racing figures who attended the committal service at St George’s Chapel in Windsor on Monday have described being part of the Queen’s funeral as “a privilege” and a day “no one will ever forget”.

Ryan Moore, who rode Estimate to win the 2013 Gold Cup for Her Late Majesty, was among the 800-strong congregation alongside the Queen's racing adviser John Warren and royal trainers Sir Michael Stoute, John Gosden, William Haggas, Michael Bell, Andrew Balding, Roger Charlton and Richard Hannon.

Bell said: “It was very moving. When you’re sitting in the church and you could hear the bagpipes outside as the coffin approached, it was extraordinary.

"Us racing people were seated roughly in the same area, and it’s a day no one will ever forget. To be there was something special; no one does these things better than the British.”

Bell added: “We were near the steps where the coffin went up into its final resting place. We got there in good time and it was beautifully organised. It was incredible.

“I was a lieutenant in the Household Cavalry so I had met the Queen before I started training. I even knew her from my days in prep school at Heatherdown. She's a big loss to racing, that's for sure."

The service and the organisation for the funeral was described in glowing terms by Haggas, who was at Windsor with his wife Maureen and had provided one of the two horses to canter in the Queen’s silks on the Sunday of the Newmarket open weekend.

“The whole thing was immaculate,” he said. “Maureen and I were very privileged to be there. There was all the pomp and ceremony and to have organised a service like that just 11 days after she died was extraordinary.”

Saga, ridden by jockey Robert Havlin, had also cantered in the Queen’s silks the day before the funeral, and his trainer John Gosden, who attended the Windsor service with his wife Rachel Hood, said the whole day was a fitting tribute.

“Rachel and I were lucky enough to be there and it was unbelievably well done,” he said. “It was a privilege to be there and there was a good turnout from the racing community.

“We were sat near a camera position so we could see a monitor to keep up with what was going on outside until the coffin arrived. The whole day very much had the feeling that it was the end of an era.”

Read more:

How the Queen was still gripped by racing and mating plans in her final days

A final farewell and a heartfelt thank you from horseracing to the Queen

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